Jack Straw's decision to veto publication of the minutes of two cabinet meetings held in the run-up to the Iraq war is a disgrace.

For such a decision to have been reached under the Freedom of Information Act means it must have been approved by the cabinet yesterday (not that we will be allowed to see the minutes for 30 years), and every member of the present government, from Gordon Brown downwards, should hang their head in shame.

It also means ministers knew they had no chance in law to reverse the admirable decision of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, to press for the minutes' publication.

Straw's argument is that cabinet confidentiality has to be preserved at all costs.

"The convention of cabinet confidentiality and the public interest in its maintenance are especially crucial when the issues at hand are of the greatest importance and sensitivity," he told MPs.

"Confidentiality serves to promote thorough decision-making. Disclosure of the cabinet minutes in this case jeopardises that space for thought and debate at precisely the point where it has its greatest utility."

I don't really believe him. The only real reason why this information cannot be released must be embarrassment to ministers - one of the reasons that should be ruled out in reaching such a judgment.

Straw – the man responsible for introduction of the Act in 2001 – is a faux friend of openness and transparency.

He was brought in because the white paper on open government proposed by David (now Lord) Clark in 1997 was seen as too decent and liberal.

Once in charge of FOI, he had to be dragged, sometimes kicking and screaming – including pressure from a Guardian campaign – towards not imposing too many hurdles preventing the publication of government information.

Then he and his successor, Lord Falconer, made sure the legislation was never implemented until 2005 - five years after it got the Royal Assent - on the trumped-up assertion that Whitehall could not cope with it.

I know, as a former member of the advisory committee on the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, that originally there was to be a rolling programme applying the act to Whitehall and various public bodies between 2000 and 2005, but cabinet ministers did not want it to happen.

FOI has few friends among government ministers - honourable exceptions are Lord Irvine, when he was Lord Chancellor; Lord Clark, and – in the present administration but not cabinet – Michael Wills, Straw's junior minister.

There is an irony here. Just as Straw becomes the first minister to announce a veto on the publication of cabinet minutes, Barack Obama has announced his intention to relax restrictions, introduced by George Bush, on what can be released under the US Freedom of Information Act.

Perhaps disatisfied campaigners for more openess in this country should apply to the US to find out what Britain told Bush about meetings of the British cabinet to discuss the war in Iraq.